Bhubaneswar, Feb 13: The NCB found 525 kg of very high-quality hashish and 234 kg of finest quality crystal Methamphetamine worth around Rs 2,000 crore, from a vessel tracked in the high seas beyond India’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Arabian Sea.
It was a big drug haul in the high sea and the first-of-its-kind operation for Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), which is being led by Odisha-born IPS officer Satya Narayan Pradhan, in association with the Indian Navy.
Speaking to a local channel, Pradhan said the operation was being planned for the past one month based on intelligence inputs. “We wanted to make sure that the location in the deep sea was dead accurate before coordinating and launching the joint operation with the Navy,” he said.
There was specific intelligence that two large boats, carrying huge quantities of drugs, were en route to Gujarat or Mumbai. The NCB and Indian Navy ship noticed two boats outside India’s EEZ, which is 200 nautical miles from the coast, after scouring the ocean for hours this week.
The 1988-batch Jharkhand-cadre IPS officer, who assumed charge as DG of NCB on July 29, 2021, said that a lot of planning and coordination went into the operation and it was a huge catch.
Hinting at the involvement of a neighbouring country, Pradhan said, “It is always been their modus operandi to harm India and damage the youths by drugs which is as part of a conspiracy.”
According to a senior officer, the boat found in the high seas had some inscription in ‘Urdu’ and the intelligence suggests that the drugs were sent from Pakistan.
